"The Shawshank Redemption"

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, the film tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover despite his claims of innocence. During his time at the prison, he befriends a fellow inmate, Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, and finds himself protected by the guards after the warden begins using him in his money laundering operation.

Despite being a box office disappointment, the film received multiple award nominations (including seven Oscar nominations) and outstanding reviews from critics for its acting, story, and realism. It has since been successful on cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. It was included in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition.^[3] It is now widely considered one of the best films of all time.

 

In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary in rural Maine. Andy befriends prisoncontraband smuggler, Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate serving a life sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and later a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Working in the prison laundry, Andy is regularly assaulted by the "bull queer" gang "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs.

In 1949, Andy overhears the brutal captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about being taxed on an inheritance, and offers to help him legally shelter the money. After a vicious assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, Hadley beats Bogs severely. Bogs is sent to another prison and Andy is never attacked again. Warden Samuel Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen. Andy's new job is a pretext for him to begin managing financial matters for the prison employees. As time passes, the Warden begins using Andy to handle matters for a variety of people including guards from other prisons and the warden himself. Andy begins writing weekly letters to the state government for funds to improve the decaying library.

 

In 1954, Brooks is paroled, but cannot adjust to the outside world after fifty years in prison and hangs himself. Andy receives a library donation that includes a recording of The Marriage of Figaro. He plays an excerpt over the public address system, resulting in him receiving solitary confinement. After his release from solitary Andy explains that hope is what gets him through his time, a concept that Red dismisses. In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, profiting by undercutting skilled labor costs and receiving kickbacks. He has Andy launder the money using the alias Randall Stephens.

In 1965, Tommy Williams is incarcerated for burglary. He joins Andy's and Red's circle of friends, and Andy helps him pass hisG.E.D. exam. In 1966, Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that an inmate at another prison claimed responsibility for the murders Andy was convicted of, implying Andy's innocence. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but the warden refuses to listen and sends Andy back to solitary when he mentions the money laundering. Norton then has Hadley murder Tommy under the guise of an escape attempt. Andy refuses to continue the money laundering, but relents after Norton threatens to burn the library, remove Andy's protection from the guards, and move him out of his cell into worse conditions. Andy is released from solitary confinement after two months and tells Red of his dream of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Red feels Andy is being unrealistic, but promises Andy that if he is ever released he will visit a specific hayfield near Buxton, Maine and retrieve a package Andy buried there. Red becomes worried about Andy's state of mind, especially when he learns Andy asked another inmate to supply him with six feet of rope.

The next day at roll call the guards find Andy's cell empty. An irate Norton throws a rock at the poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the wall, and the rock tears through the poster. Removing the poster, the warden discovers a tunnel that Andy dug with his rock hammer over the last seventeen years, hidden by posters of starlets Andy acquired from Red over the years. The previous night, Andy escaped through the tunnel and used the prison's sewage pipe to reach freedom, bringing with him Norton's suit, shoes, and the ledger containing details of the money laundering. While guards search for him the following morning, Andy poses as Randall Stephens and visits several banks to withdraw the laundered money. Finally, he mails the ledger and evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. The police arrive at Shawshank and take Hadley into custody, while Norton commits suicide to avoid arrest.

After serving forty years, Red is finally paroled. He struggles to adapt to life outside prison and fears he never will. Remembering his promise to Andy, he visits Buxton and finds a cache containing money and a letter asking him to come to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole and travels to Fort Hancock, Texas to cross the border to Mexico, admitting he finally feels hope. On a beach in Zihuatanejo, he finds Andy, and the two friends are happily reunited.

CAST

• Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne. Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt were all offered the role but turned it down because of scheduling conflicts with Waterworld, Forrest Gump and Interview with the Vampire, respectively.
• Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, Andy's best friend and the film's narrator; convicted of murder in 1927. Before Freeman was cast, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were each considered for the role. Although written as a middle-aged Irishman with greying red hair (as in the novella), Darabont cast Freeman for his authoritative presence and demeanor; he could not see anyone else as Red.^[4] The short dialogue with Andy is a jest towards this casting decision, as when asked about the origin of his nickname, Red ironically replies, "Maybe it's because I'm Irish." Freeman once stated in an interview that Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is his favorite book.^[5]
• Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton. Although he is well versed in the Bible and presents himself as a pious, devoutChristian and reform-minded administrator, his actions reveal him to be corrupt, ruthless, and remorseless.
• William Sadler as Heywood, a member of Red's gang of long-serving convicts.
• Clancy Brown as Capt. Byron Hadley, chief of the guards. Hadley is a sadistic guard who thinks nothing of delivering beatings to the inmates to keep them in line. When cast for the role, Brown declined the offer to study real-life prison guards as preparation for his role, because he felt that he would end up with too many inspirations to balance.^[6]
• Gil Bellows as Tommy Williams, a young convict whose experiences in a previous prison hold the truth about Andy's innocence.
• Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond, the head of "The Sisters" gang and a prison rapist.
• James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen, prison librarian/trustee and one of the oldest convicts at Shawshank, having been in prison since 1905. Darabont cast Whitmore because he was one of his favorite character actors.^[4]
• Jeffrey DeMunn as the prosecuting attorney in Dufresne's trial.

...

If you think that's a turnoff title, remember all the smartass things people said before Forrest Gump happened. Shawshank — the name refers to a maximum-security prison in Maine — is already being touted to join Gump in the Oscar race. Why not? The academy regularly drops its drawers for films that celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. And this baby strums that theme hard as inmate Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a Shawshank newcomer in 1946, strikes up a 20-year friendship with a lifer named Red (Morgan Freeman). They're both in jail for the Big One: murder.

Robbins and Freeman have the juice as actors to make figuring out whether Andy and Red really did it a riveting guessing game, especially if you're a sucker for prison melodramas. Writer Frank Darabont (The Fly II), in his feature-directing debut, doesn't skimp on the caged-bird cliches, sadistic and sentimental, but he plays enough hardball with the formula to evoke memories of such goodies as Cool Hand Luke, Birdman of Alcatraz and Riot in Cell Block II.

Stephen King wrote the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, on which the film is based. (Andy's cell is bedecked with a poster of Hayworth in all her Gilda glory.) You can find the novella in a 1982 King collection, Different Seasons, along with a story, "The Body," that became the, basis for the 1986 Rob Reiner smash Stand by Me. Both tales are said to represent the gentler side of King, meaning the side that doesn't sell as well, though the torture, rape and killing in Shawshank qualify as horror in my book.

Darabont stays mostly true to the source, except for shooting in Ohio instead of Maine, expanding a few scenes and characters and casting the always welcome Freeman as a prisoner King described as a red-headed Irishman. King is a master at creating a whole world out of small details. Darabont tries to match him visually. The everyday agonies of prison life are meticulously laid out by cinematographer Roger Deakins (Barton Fink). You can almost feel the frustration and rage seeping into the skin of the inmates.

There is humor, too, as Red brings the painfully introverted Andy out of his shell. Andy, a respected banker before being convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, wins favor and permission to expand the prison library by offering financial advice to the Shawshank elite. That includes Hadley (Clancy Brown), the cruel captain of the guards, and Norton (Bob Gunton), the fanatically religious warden. We've seen these types before. There are also cobwebs on Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore), the aged parolee who can't adjust to the outside, and Tommy Williams (Gil Bellows, in a role once earmarked for Brad Pitt), the young thief who can't live inside.

It's the no-bull performances that hold back the flood of banalities. Robbins and Freeman connect with the bruised souls of Andy and Red to create something undeniably powerful and moving. Instead of selling bromides, as lesser actors would do, they show the wrenching struggle required by any human being in a trap simply to keep hope alive.